Thursday, 25 February 2016

As we had discussed some of the insights and problems in managing the expectation of others, both in professional and personal life, now we discuss the solutions, approach to manage the expectation as it is difficult to fulfill the expectation always. Solution approach to manage the expectation:1.Taking responsibility to improve the competency2.Improving communication skill / feedback, giving and receiving 3.Deciding the choice and accepting consequencesImproving communication skill / feedback, giving and receiving: In professional life, we are struggling to meet the expectation of others or others are not up to our expectation is probably due to our inability to express our requirement very clearly… Expressing our requirements clearly is the art of communication and developing this skill is a life long effort as we need to deal with different people, with different situation and we are at different level of maturity. One technique we can use in a professional environment is PURPOSEFULCOMMUNICATION. when we ask for any details from team, we can go one step further by explaining why we need the data, when exactly we need, how this data would be useful .By explaining this in detail, we respect others as individual and there is likely less chance for misunderstanding the expectation. Also developing the skill of giving the right feedback at the right time to others when things are not going as per our expectation helps to correct the situation as well as to improve the relationship. Similarly, we can develop the EGO free attitude for asking feedback from others when we are not clear on the communication or expectation of others.

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

As we had discussed some of the insights and problems in managing the expectation of others both in professional and personal life, now we discuss the solutions approach to manage the expectation as it is difficult to fulfill the expectation always. Solution approach to manage the expectation:1.Taking responsibility to improve the competency2.Improving the communication and feedback3.Deciding the choice and accepting consequenceTaking responsibility to improve the competency: One of the reasons we struggle to fulfill the expectation of others in professional life is the lack of required competency which organization or others expect from us. The one of the ways to cope up with the expectation is to continuously upgrade the competency. Competency is the combination of knowledge, skill and attitude towards the task. Depending upon your profession, there is a need to continually update the core knowledge or technical skill. Apart from core skill development, other management skills like able to prioritize the activities, able to extract the essence of the information, able to get things down from others, leveraging technology and others for personal productivity and so on needs to be developed. As per recent research by World economic forum, Problem solving skill is being top skill expected in the organization. Most of the misunderstandings between peers, boss and subordinate arises due to lack of understanding the big picture, detailing to data, analyzing the data, connecting the dots, interpreting the information, articulating the pro’s and con’s of actions and ability to communicate the solutions approach etc . Development and mastering above competency is a life long experience. As said earlier, managing the expectation is also a life long experience!.Hence invest yourself in improving your competency.

Sunday, 14 February 2016

Past weeks, we discussed three insights on expectation. First, when there is a relationship, there must be an expectation. Second, in a relationship, since someone is believing that you are the person capable of meeting their needs, thereby expectation rises. If we want to preserve the relationship, it becomes our responsibility to manage the expectation. . Third, we cannot control other’s expectation and it is difficult to fulfill other expectation all the time, only we need to learn to manage or balance the expectation.We will discuss fourth insights of expectation Insight 4:"In a relationship, the expectation is not explicitly expressed"

Most of the time, as we take relationship as GRANTED, we restrict the expression of our expectation to others. When we are not explicitly expressing our expectation, it creates misunderstanding, disappointments and frustration in a relationship.For example, as a manager, you want to cut down the expenses and expect your team member to prepare the expense analysis. Your team member is also preparing and presenting you all the data with analysis. But still internally you may be disappointed with your team ‘s performance. The reason could be internally you are expecting decision points or solutions approach where you are getting only the accumulated data and analysis. You might have assumed or taken granted, you team member understood your internal expectation and when the reality is not so, you are getting disappointed. Similarly, in personal life, your spouse / children want you to spend time with them and they may ask for taking them to short outings. Even after you spend your time and money on the picnic or outing, they may get upset with you. The reason could be the real expectation n is spending quality time with you and you had not fulfilled during outings. Since it is an intimate relationship, things are taken granted and the expression is not explicitly expressed.The point to understand is in a relationship, most of the time, things are taken granted and the expectation is not expressed clearly. Once we understand these insights, we can discuss the solutions approach in the coming weeks..

Saturday, 6 February 2016

Past weeks, we discussed two insights on expectation.First, when there is a relationship, there must be an expectation. Second, in a relationship, since someone is believing that you are the person capable of meeting their needs, thereby expectation rises. If we want to preserve the relationship, it becomes our responsibility to manage the expectation. This reflection will relieve the stress to some extend on managing the expectation.We will discuss third insights of expectation Insight 3:

"You cannot control other’s expectation"Even though our intention must be to fulfill the expectation of others to the maximum extent possible, we must also realize the fact that we cannot control other’s expectation of us. That means, others can expect anything from us, it is not possible always to fulfill the expectation. It requires a balanced approach to managing the expectation and relationship.This insight is important, failing which only, sometimes, we want to please all people and in this process, either we lose our temperament or personality or disappoint everyone surrounding us. For example, through your business, you are providing service and your customer is expecting more from you and sometimes expecting unreasonably say superior performance, lowest cost, and fastest delivery. You cannot control the customer’s expectation. At the same time, you may not able to fulfill all expectation, as you know it is a tradeoff between cost, speed, and delivery. Here what you must learn is how to manage the unreasonable expectation and retain the relationship, not on trying to please others at the cost of your profitability and peace .We discuss the solution part once we outline one more insights on expectation next week !.